


Echo

by 2_many_fandoms_2_little_time



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: After Alec, Echo - Jason Walker, Flashbacks, M/M, Magnus POV, Sad, With Alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:59:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2_many_fandoms_2_little_time/pseuds/2_many_fandoms_2_little_time
Summary: Based off the song, Echo by Jason Walker, Magnus is reflecting on a memory he has with Alec. It gets sad.





	Echo

_Alec and Magnus stumble along the edge of a river, the lights of Brooklyn shine through the darkness in the distance. Hands are on coats, tugging each other closer. Alec stumbles and Magnus catches him with a laugh. Magnus turns to look out at the city._

_“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says. Alec follows Magnus’ gaze._

_“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve never seen it at night - really_ seen _it. Jace, Izzy, and I were always rushing to some demon attack. I never realized how lovely New York was.”_

_Magnus is still gazing at the city, enthralled. Alec looks at him tentatively._

_“You’ve been coming here for awhile, haven’t you?” Magnus looks at him, wistful._

_“One of the mortal women I dated, she had a young daughter,” he begins. “This was far before being a single mother was acceptable and she and her daughter lived not too far away from here. She and I - Maria was her name - would come out here and tell each other stories and sing songs. She liked to compete with me by shouting her name across the river, trying to beat me in volume. As she grew older, she almost always did. I should have known, she became a pretty famous opera singer later on.”_

_Alec watches Magnus. “Is she still alive?” Magnus looks at his hands._

_“She died in ‘77. Heart attack.” Neither of them speak, both looking at the water in silence._

_“Alec Lightwood.”_

_Magnus looks at Alec in confusion._

_“Bet I can say it louder than you,” Alec says, mischievously. Magnus smiles._

_“Magnus Bane!” shouts Magnus._

_“That was pitiful,” says Alec. “It’s got to be more like this: ALEC LIGHTWOOD.”_

_It doesn’t take long for both of them to start screaming their names and soon they’re laughing, as the people going by on yachts start to stare. They grab onto each other again and then they’re standing still, silent, looking into each other’s eyes._

_“I love you, Alexander Lightwood.”_

_“I love you, Magnus Bane.”_

_They kiss and it’s heaven, it’s like coming up from water for breath, and neither of them want to be without this. Not for one second, one moment. Neither want to forget this because to forget it is to forget to breathe._

 

~~~

 

Magnus Bane’s footsteps run fast and furious to the river’s shoreline. The lights are brighter, more plentiful than the last time he was here. There's a sign in front of the water, announcing a soon to be built real estate project. He doesn’t know why exactly he’s come to this place, there are plenty others, the place where they had their first date, outside the building where they first said ‘I love you,’ even their first apartment together. But he can’t get this riverside out of his mind. At least he’s going somewhere else than his bed.

It’s been about fifty years since he and Alec last came here and shouted their names across the water and a week ago Alec Lightwood breathed his last breath. It was quiet, the the flutter of a bird’s wing, and then he was gone. Yet another of the people he loved, wiped from the Earth and gone forever.

“Magnus Bane,” Magnus croaks. His face is coated in tears and his eyes are swollen. Bags are heavy under his eyes, making it clear he hasn’t been sleeping. He clears his throat.

“Magnus Bane.” A little louder this time. “Magnus Bane. Magnus Bane! Magnus Bane! MAGNUS BANE.” Magnus holds back a sob. He remembers, clear as day, him and Alec shouting their names back and forth, their throats becoming hoarse.

“MAGNUS BANE!” he yells and his voice breaks and he falls to the ground. Alec’s voice isn’t answering him back. It never will again. This man, this man who somehow convinced his guarded heart to love again, it gone forever. He doesn’t want to ever love again because to love is to get hurt and Magnus is done with hurt, and death, and heartbreak. And suddenly he’s curled up in a ball because Magnus doesn’t want to be Magnus Bane anymore, he doesn’t want to be here anymore, he wants to be wherever Alec is and if that’s nothingness and nonexistence, that’s okay, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I was crying as I wrote this because it really is so sad ;( I got the inspiration for it while listening to Echo by Jason Walker and I had to write it. 
> 
> These kinds of scenarios are really the ones that get me the most because Magnus and Alec love each other to death and when Alec inevitably dies and Magnus is left, will he eventually move on like he did for Alec or won't he? He'll have been burned by love yet again and I personally wouldn't be able to bear it. I know that one of Magnus' quotes is "you think something is unbearable and then you bear it" but you can only do that so many times. He gave up for a century. 
> 
> Also, the girl mentioned, Maria, is loosely based off of opera singer Maria Callas who was born in the 1920s although I envisioned this version of her to have been a young girl in the 1910s New York.


End file.
